A decade ago, Daisy Khan found herself at the centre of the storm that broke in New York with the tragedy of September 11. Along with her husband, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, she is among the leading spokespeople for the American Muslim community. Over the last ten years this dynamic couple has worked tirelessly to heal the wounds inflicted that terrible day.
In this interview recorded in New York City for Eureka Street TV Khan speaks candidly about the effect of September 11, both on her personally and on the local Muslim community. She talks about changing perceptions of Muslims, and the controversy that flared with recent attempts by her organisation to open an Islamic cultural centre near Ground Zero.
At the time of September 11, Imam Feisal led al-Farah Mosque at Tribeca in Lower Manhattan. He and Khan had founded the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), a leading organisation trying to help the largely migrant Muslim community integrate successfully into American society.
Imam Feisal was born in Kuwait and came to the US as a teenager. His father was an Islamic scholar who had been imam at several major mosques around the world. Khan was born into a devout Muslim family in Kashmir, India, and came to the US as a young adult to study architecture.
From the day the Twin Towers fell, their lives changed dramatically. Rather than working mainly with American Muslims, trying to foster an American Muslim identity, they began to focus on outreach to the broader community, meeting demands to speak, teach, and answer questions about Islam.
Shortly after September 11 Imam Feisal began the Cordoba Initiative, 'a multi-faith organisation whose objective is to heal the relationship between the Islamic world and America ... through civil dialogue, policy initiatives, education and cultural programs'. It takes its name from the city in medieval Muslim Spain where Jews, Christians and Muslims co-existed in relative peace.
While ASMA and the Cordoba Initiative have been universally lauded, a more recent project has provoked ire and controversy. In 2009 the couple spearheaded a consortium that announced it would establish an Islamic centre in Park Place near Ground Zero. It would be situated on the site of a building that had been damaged in the September 11 attacks. Initially they